I'm not a baker. Baking is an edible science that requires accuracy and precision. It requires the perfect balance between flours, leaveners, fats, and liquids. When I bake, I feel more like a mad scientist because I break all the rules. So when something actually works and turns out awesome, I'll be honest, I'm often surprised! These brownies are the perfect example – no flour, no oil or butter, but they are amazing (happy dance)! And the best part, you don't need a fancy mixer. I mixed this all by hand in a large bowl with a whisk and a spatula.

If you've never heard of PB2, it's basically a powdered peanut butter with 85% less fat. You add a little water to make it a spreadable peanut butter. I personally prefer real peanut butter if I'm spreading it on toast, but for baking and adding to smoothies, PB2 is excellent. I used to buy it on Amazon, but now I see it in my local supermarket. Here's the Amazon link if you can't find it near you.

Moist, chocolatey and delicious, you will LOVE them! They also happen
to be gluten-free, and if you use dairy-free chips they can be
dairy-free as well. If you have nut allergies however, these are not for
you. But my other brownie recipe called: Amazing Flourless Brownies are your nut-free answer. Those are made with black beans instead of flour but I swear, you'll never know! Both recipes are great yet different. Curious to see which you like best!

In a large bowl combine the PB2, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and mix well with a spatula. Add the egg and egg whites and stir. Add water, honey, vanilla and stir with a spatula until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan and bake about 30 minutes. Set aside to cool, then cut into 12 bars cutting 3 rows x 4 rows.

Defatted peanut flour has at least 70% less fat. If it had the same amount of fat, it would be "butter" when you ground it instead of "flour." According to Wikipedia, "Peanut flour is made from crushed, fully or partly defatted peanuts. Peanut flour, depending on the quantity of fat removed, is highly protein-dense, providing up to 31.32g per cup (60g)." Much healthier than peanut butter.

I also buy it in large quantities via Amazon and sell it at cost (usually $4) at my Weight Watchers meetings. The cheapest at the supermarket, if they even have it, is $4.99 and some stores charge close to $8.

I have only found PB2 on iHerb before, but Amazon sounds like a good shout too! Personally, I agree with you, peanut butter is way better than the powder mixed with water, but PB2 works soooo well when it comes to incorporating into cakes and whatnot :D When I noticed I have all the ingredients to make this, I did a wee dance too, they look SO good! :D Thanks for sharing, mad-scientist-tastic or not ;) x

I'm not gluten-free, but I might have to try these anyways! They look amazingly fudgy, and it's just an added bonus that they are healthier than other brownies. I'll have to look for PB2 at my grocery store.

Hi Gina! Love your recipes. Just a quick question: if I use egg beaters in lieu of an egg and an egg white, do you think I could just use two egg's worth of the beaters without affecting the recipe too much?

The sugar and salt content is quite low, and for those of us who crave peanut butter, this is a much healthier option because we don't have all the oil (fat) found in traditional peanut butter. Not to mention, no preservatives!

I buy my pb2 on netrition.com and it's cheaper! I buy it by the 12 pack case because I use it SO much! I'm a health coach and my clients use it on their brownies, etc. It's a lifesaver! Our program + your recipes + pb2 have literally been the three biggest tools in my losing 30 pounds in four months! Thanks Gina!http://healthconfessions.comhttp://www.youfit.tsfl.com/explore

SERIOUSLY!? I have been such a good girl this month, and I have been CRAVING brownies for my birthday treat next week! These will be perfect! I was about to make your black bean brownies, but I LOVE PB and CHOCOLATE w everything! With a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, these will be sublime! THANK YOU! Making your chicken cheese enchiladas tonight!

Gina, I made the brownies for dessert tonight, and we enjoyed them very much. I didn't want to go to the store, so used what I had in the pantry. I didn't have the full amount of honey, so I used part honey and part agave. I also discovered that I only had 1/4 cup of chocolate chips, so that had to do. They still came out fine, although next time I'll use the full amount. Saved me a point by using just the 1/4 cup of chocolate chips. Thanks for all your wonderful recipes and ideas!

Cant wait ot try them!! I made some swaps in the recipe, changed the egg by egg beaters, instead of 3/4 cup of chips i'll use 1/3 and instead of honey i'll try sugar free maple, i entered the calories and they will come out at 74 calories each! Do you thinkt hey could work?I hope so!

I haven't tried these YET... but I will. I have to tell you that I LOVE the flourless brownies with the black beans. I have shared them with everyone and given out your recipe and blog address to anyone who will listen. Everyone loves them, and wouldn't suspect that there are black beans in them if they weren't privy to the secret. Thanks for a great blog. Your recipes are amazing.

I used dark chocolate chips and the taste was amazing! Mine did have a weird almost rubbery texture on top but it may have been old PB2 or baking soda. Very moist and tasty! Can't wait to try these again!

I wish people would make the Recipe as stated, if this one doesn't suit you, Find Another or better yet, Make up your own recipe to suit your needs. This recipe is Perfect the way written, End Rant :-)

Totally agree with your rant. Experiment people that is what Gina did. I feel bad for people who post recipes because they get hounded by all these questions. Gluten Free Girl has been experiencing this for years and finally said ENOUGH! We will help if we can but we can't recreate the recipes for each and everyone of you. Figure it out people!!!! I find that if you Google "substitute for ___________ (whatever you are trying to avoid) that works wonders and you avoid relying on other people who have more important things to do with their time beside hold your hand through life. End Rant. :)

TOTALLY AGREE! I wish there was a way to filter out the dumb whiners. UHG especially all the vegan ones! and ALL the people who suddenly have gluten allergies...bc apparently that's cool now????? go somewhere else for your freaking vegan/GF recipes!!

Thank you for the BEST laugh of the day!!! WHY do I sit here reading all of these idiotic questions?? I guess I was hoping someone (namely you two) would R*A*N*T I love it and I love Gina and her recipes.

Agree - we all benefit from this site so much and it is bold to ask Gina all of your different twists and turns if it is not in the original recipe do you really expect her to go back and try it with agave, no egg, etc. and update you - seriously people!

Wow, this looks delicious =) Thanks for sharing this. I also have low calorie recipes one of which a recent one is on a sandwich for less than 300 calories a day. Feel free to check it out on my blog if you have some time. Thanks again and nice post =)

I am wondering the same thing as anonymous above. In your commentary you mention using black beans instead of flour in the last line before getting to the recipe but then black beans are not in the ingredient list. Can you clarify?

Check the link... that will take you to the recipe that uses black beans. See, the recipe above is for the PB2 brownies. Some people need to avoid peanuts, so they should click on the link for the OTHER brownies (with beans, without peanuts)

Tries this amazing recipe today with daughter !!! We love, love, love the brownies they were moist and very delicious a chocolate lovers dream ! Also had never even heard of PB2 and we now consider this a new staple in our pantry! Have a daughter on gluten/dairy free diet, I watch my nutrition and weight and 2 other daughters on Paleo style plans and they all tried the brownies and gave them a big thumbs up!! Keep the great recipes coming :)

I happened to have everything I needed to make these already sitting in my cabinets! I made them last night and half of them are already gone! My husband and I both love how chocolatey and gooey these are :)

Made these for my boyfriend for Passover (no flour) and they were soooo good! I use semi-sweet chocolate chips so they had a richer, not so sweet flavor. YUM! I will definitely make these again! Thanks!!

I made these yesterday. The were A-Mazing! SO Tasty! Everyone was so impressed with them. They didn't know the little secret about how healthy they were. Thanks for sharing these. I have pinned so many of your recipes on my adventure to eat healthy. This might be my favorite.

Yanno, I understand how some get frustrated with people changing things up...but I can't tell you how many times I haven't had all the ingredients needed for a recipe, but within the comments...poof! There was a great substitute! I suspect most of these recipes came from trial and error...and I find the changes/substitutions/additions pretty helpful! I LOVE this place! :D

My guess is that using regular peanut butter would throw off the consistency of the brownies. The PB2 acts as the dry ingredient to replace flour in the recipe. Adding peanut butter means the only dry ingredient would be the cocoa powder and I'm guessing they would never set up.

Amazon.com will not ship PB2 to Canada, but there's a few online retailers here that have it and I suspect that there are many stores in MTL that stock it. I'm in Ottawa, and most health or natural food stores have it. Online try fitshop.ca.

So funny, I was wondering why mine turned out so much darker than yours. They were BLACK. Then I saw that someone above asked if you could use chocolate pb2. I used half chocolate and half regular pb2. So I believe that's why they were so dark. But they were beautiful! And they were SO SO good. I really recommend using half chocolate! I'm glad that I can't read lol! Because I thought your recipe called for all chocolate. So I used half and half since I was running out of it.

I made these brownies and it was very good. My hubby and 21 yr old said they were too rich for them LOL. I will try to cut back on unsweetened cocoa a bit and add bit more honey...not sure yet. I loved them...of course I am a chocolate addict!

I couldn't find PB2 in grocery stores in my area. I went to Amazon.com and ordered a jar.

I'm curious about the calorie count... I'm only going on the calories posted in the recipe, but if it's 5 grams of fat (45 calories) + 6 grams protein (24 calories) + 26 grams carbs (104 calories), the total would be 173 kcals, not 131. Even with fiber taken into consideration, which would hypothetically put it at 161 net kcals. Is there any error in the recipe posting or an error in the calculation? Thanks!

To the person who suggested buying on iherb, their prices are higher than the supermarket for PB2. To whomever was concerned about the added sugar, it's only 1 gram per serving. And if that bothers you, use less sweetener in the recipe. To Gina, can this be made without the chocolate chips, presumably for lower ppv?

I bought my PB2 at Whole Foods. If memory serves me right, their price was below $5. It was the first time I had seen anything like it. I have used it in smoothies, but now I will try out a new recipe! Trying to avoid gluten and see if it helps with some other issues.

I made these last night and WOW! So good! I used a brownie pan I bought from a Pampered Chef party that makes individual brownies, so portioning was a cinch! It also cut the cooking time to 20 minutes. When done, they pop right out and put them on a cooling rack before putting them away. I will be making these A LOT!

Gina- I made these last night and was surprised by the texture. Mine came out almost cake-like with a light crumb, not dense as I expected. Is that how they are for you? I just wondered if I did something wrong. They are very rich and chocolatey! I had two for dessert-they are so good :)

Sooooo good. I made these tonight for my family dinner and everyone loved them (kid approved...There were 6 kids and they all gobbled them up and asked for more). I didn't have raw honey so I just used the regular stuff and they turned out great.

So I made these last night with dairy free chocolate chips and all egg whites instead of egg because I'm supposed to be on an extremely low fat diet. I also used a different brand of peanut butter powder because I couldn't find PB2. (And at $8.00 for the jar I'll be searching amazon next time!). I was worried before I baked them as it was like pouring water in the pan, didn't thicken up like I thought it would. But they taste amazing, nice and dark. The texture however is not brownie like, more like a chocolate cake, which is just fine!

I've made these twice now, and this second time I added about 3/4 of a cup of frozen raspberries to the recipe (and used regular honey) - best thing ever. It's like a chocolatey peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

For anyone who may not have enough PB2 on hand (and an intense sweet tooth); I used half PB2 (all I had) and half coconut flour and they still came out great! The look/texture wasn't a standard brownie but the taste was delicious and chocolaty, more like a cake! I can't wait to try these with full PB2!

I made these this weekend, and I just want to point out that if you are making them gluten/dairy free (as I was for a friend) make sure that your COOKING SPRAY does not contain wheat or dairy as some versions of PAM do!

I'm not sure what happened. I made this exactly according to recipe, and they came out like little tasteless sponges. Not chocolate-y, not peanut butter-y, not moist... clearly I did something wrong, but I can't figure it out for the life of me where I went astray.